On September 1, 2004 the FAA inaugurated a new pilot certificate dubbed the "sport pilot" that makes learning to fly easier and more affordable that ever. Intended primarily for recreational use, you can now become a pilot with as little as 20 hours of flight instruction! In addition, the FAA also created a new category of affordable "light-sport aircraft"!

But there are still plenty of people flying Piper, Cessna, and Mooney aircraft that do experience vacuum failures. Many use VOR, ILS, etc with no GPS. The requirements and flight test ought to be flexible enough to fit the applicant and the airplane he brought. If he shows up in a J3 with paper charts and no iPad, he ought to demonstrate plotting and flying a course using pilotage and dead reckoning.

The current batch of graduating ARMY Helicopter pilots would ball-up a piston helicopter in 10 seconds. They get their Primary training in a Lakota that practically has a pushbutton that's labeled "3' Stationary Hover." The concept of coordinating throttle to collective pitch changes is completely foreign to them.

Are they real pilots? Should technology be fully embraced and allowed to toss the old methods and machines onto the aviation trash-heap?

I'm 58. I think real computer people are those that are well-versed at MS-DOS and how it lurks in the background and Makes Windows 10 work.I think real helicopter pilots can get in a piston machine with manual throttle control, start it up, engage the rotor, and go fly. I think real fixed-wing pilots can get in a slow, fabric-covered, tail-dragger with a control stick and go do wheel landings and 3-pointers before going on a 150 mile cross-country without an electrical system.

I realize my views are archaic. We are moving at the speed-of-light into an era where affordable composite airplanes zip around in airspace that has no airways, at speeds that can overtake the Blackbird. They have avionics that depict the most complex data sets in an instantly intuitive format that resembles Saturday morning Looney-Toons. Real-Time satellite views and high-resolution Weather Radar are superimposed on perpetually current Sectional Chart moving maps so pilots can weave between danger points by using MicroSOFT Windows-In-The-Sky symbology. All the while seeing every other aircraft's position and altitude, captured not by Radar, but by WAAS accurate GPS position AND Transponder/Encoder. If your entire electrical system goes Tango...You can quickly pick up your accelerator equipped I-Phone and have a full 6-pack of instruments, nav capability, and a great method of communication.

This new stuff is all great. Aviation will be safer and much more user-friendly because of it. I still believe every pilot needs the "cave-man" skills Jimmy Doolittle used to bomb Tokyo. Having the skies full of "pushbutton pilots" or autonomous aircraft just would not make me smile as much as reading that the FAA will not remove cave man skills from the syllabus to become a pilot.

It's called progress. Things change, hopefully for the better. We need to stop embracing the past and look to the future. Unfortunately, the FAA is slow in keeping up. When someone decides to learn to fly and get a pilot certificate, they choose what type equipment they will fly. If they will never fly an airplane that has ADF, DME, VOR, ILS, tailwheel, etc., there is absolutely no reason they need to learn about that much less demonstrate it on a flight test.

I think a real pilot is one that can safely get in an aircraft and take off, fly enroute, and land, while being capable of dealing with any unexpected problems that might get in the way from weather, system failures, or other factors. Full stop.

I have a *really* hard time believing current military helicopter pilots are not trained in how to deal with a failure of the "hover button". It's a system that can fail, pilots are generally trained in how to deal with a failure of any of the aircraft's systems.

I'd like to be a real pilot, but my airplane has an electric system so I don't have to hand-prop it. Damn push button pilots with their electrical starters...

The first time I ever hand-propped an airplane, I was a 17 year old student pilot on a solo cross-country toward my Private certificate. I landed at a grass strip (intended destination) and no one was there. When I got back in the airplane (Champion Tri-Traveler), the battery was dead. So, I hand propped it. Fortunately for me, nothing went wrong.

Type47 wrote:But deciphering metars, drawing on paper charts, using the e6b slide-rule and the magnetic compass are all part of the hazing ritual that the in crowd uses to discourage people who won’t pay to learn the useless information.I wonder why general aviation is dying?

.... exams still contain questions about outdated technologies like loran, microwave landing systems and VHF/DF steer, etc.At least they still did as recently as 2013. And at least AFAIK still do.

Seriously ....IMO rather than making the applicant use time and study to learn to read raw METARS, plot on paper charts, etc, etc.....the CFI and practical examiner might do well to train and determine, for example, that the student pilot realy has mastery of his/her GPS . Do they fully understand its powers and functions as well as its limitations? Are they adept enough with it that in an emergency deviation to the nearest alternate they are not going to be fumbling around to learn a previously unused function? Do they have reasonable plans of what they would do in the rare event have a GPS failure? If they have electronic engine monitoring do they understand it properly? If they have, as many of us do, synthetic vision in the cockpit, do they understand both its power and its serious limitations? Have they ever tried using it?

Fat chance? I can dream.

Along the same lines....due to FAA being 30 years behind reality...When my GPS starts up it says something "...not use this as a primary navigational instrument. It is only to be used for situational awareness." I'll wager that over 95% of pilots flying VFR, and many flying IFR, using this (iFly GPS) and similar ones are absolutely using it as their primaRyan navigational instrument.

AlexP.S., I do not blame the CFIs and DPEs for teaching the obsolete skills (unless the really inappropriately emphasize and beat hard in them) ... They're required to, and besides the CFI needs to prep the student for what's in the test...obsolete items an all. FWIW, it turned out my particular DPE on my practical really didn't seem to demand evidence that I had mastery of plot-on-paper-chart. I was prepared to demonstrate that when he pulled the usual "your intended field has shut down by weather....divert to KXXX." But when I pulled up the alternate on the GPS and told it direct me there, he was perfectly OK with that , and blew off the paper chart ritual

You wrote, in part ....."...I'm 58. I think real computer people are those that are well-versed at MS-DOS and how it lurks in the background and Makes Windows 10 work......."

At the risk of us getting even further off topic:I've got a few years on you , and made my living doing computer support from DOS days through to Windows ten and iPad,

So, with my background, feel compelled to comment on those words. My minor comment is DOS code has not been underneath windows "making it work" since way way back before Windows XP . More important, doesn’t bother me at all that my clients and friends know nothing about DOS they use their computers. Except in very rare techie repairs it's useless skill for what they want or need to do. As useless as reading raw METARS is to me in my my aircraft.

What I am concerned about is their lack of mastery and understanding of actual OS they're currently using and its powers limitations. And particularly, especially with younger people their Inability to distinguish between reliable websites, Fake websites, and real but unreliable ones.

Similarly, I repeat my earlier point back on topic a bit more: Given that everybody (student, CFI, FAA, DOE) has limited time and energy, why waste it on mastering the obsolete skills? Why not apply that same energy and learning and teaching and testing time to mastering the relevant modern ones?

That is also not true. Current Army helicopter trainees (initial Lakota pilots) receive 'limited' training on manual throttle operations. Use of manual throttle operation is used during emergency procedures training (fuel governor failure).The Lakota trainee may be a little sloppy at first . . . but within a couple of hours he would "get the hang of" collective/throttle coordination. It's not rocket science. However, the Lakota handles manual throttle control differently (than older Textron-Bell machines), because the fuel control governors use FADEC, not mechanical linkage.

Regarding your above assertion, is there a bigger point you wish to express?Are you implying, newly minted Army Aviators are somehow 'inferior' or "less capable," than Army Aviators from a previous era?They are far from that.

bryancobb wrote:Are they real pilots?

Seriously?

bryancobb wrote:Should technology be fully embraced and allowed to toss the old methods and machines onto the aviation trash-heap?

No. That withstanding, the overall goal is "mission accomplishment." Anything new and innovative to accomplish that is welcomed.There is nothing "macho" about being from an era of manual throttle/collective coordination. Back then, it was "state of the art." Helicopter times have changed and thank God for that! With new technology, rotary-wing flight keeps getting better and better.

bryancobb wrote:I realize my views are archaic.

On the contrary . . . we just have a different perspective.

bryancobb wrote:This new stuff is all great. Aviation will be safer and much more user-friendly because of it. I still believe every pilot needs the "cave-man" skills Jimmy Doolittle used to bomb Tokyo. Having the skies full of "pushbutton pilots" or autonomous aircraft just would not make me smile as much as reading that the FAA will not remove cave man skills from the syllabus to become a pilot.

Just for the record, I could care less about "magnetic dip." That knowledge never got me out of a serious jam in anything I have ever flown. . .

Your passionate response is both articulate and correct. It is, as you said, just a different perspective than I have.

Case - N - Point...My wife just asked me to replace all the old window locks in our house a few minutes ago. She had me abag full of new ones from Home Depot. As I was installing them, I realized I had 9 that learned to lock windows in a TH-55 and 2 learned to lock windows in a Lakota.

I would not install the 2 that was labeled "Bright Brass Finished Balls." I asked her to return them because I wanted the "real" ones that were labeled "Solid Brass Balls."

I'm just an ol' fogey and usually find that "new and improved" is made more easily and cheaper, is more profitable for the manufacturer, doesn't hold up well, and I just don't like it.

Another quick example - Years ago, I was at KVPC and a lady in her late 70's and her Collie flew in, in a L-4. She was going across America with only a compass and no electrical system. I thought "WOWWWWwwWwwWW! I was at the airport a few days ago when a guy landed with his Golden Retriever in a CTLS. He had 2 I-pads, ADS-B OUT/IN with real time weather depicted on a Sectional Chart with ForeFlight ($299/yr) with Synthetic Vision.

There is no doubt in my mind that the lady in the Cub was a much more skilled aviator than the pushbutton "techie" in the slick tadpole.I embrace technology. I design stuff everyday using CATIA. I perform CMM inspections of finished advanced composite aircraft components using a FARO arm and the most advanced metrology methods. BUTTT...and that's a big but, I feel there ARE occasions where a micrometer and caliper would get the job done better and quicker and it ABSOLUTELY FRUSTRATES ME TO HELL when we bust a delivery and go delinquent when we send our instruments out for annual "re-certification" and no one can use the micrometer and caliper nor does our procedures allow it.

It's fine if you're stuck in the past, but don't denegrade those who aren't. Modern aircraft, and those who learned to fly them, are just as good or better than anything from the past. Your examples aren't relevant. Be careful or you won't be either.

TimTaylor wrote:It's fine if you're stuck in the past, but don't denegrade those who aren't. Modern aircraft, and those who learned to fly them, are just as good or better than anything from the past. Your examples aren't relevant. Be careful or you won't be either.

I'm already not. I walk in to work and pass by 3 young engineers that have their VR headsets/goggles on and are reachingup into the air and pinching their fingertips together in cyberspace. I just shake my head and say, I'm glad I'll be out of this mess in 3 more years and it will be in their hands.

TimTaylor wrote:It's fine if you're stuck in the past, but don't denegrade those who aren't. Modern aircraft, and those who learned to fly them, are just as good or better than anything from the past. Your examples aren't relevant. Be careful or you won't be either.

I'm already not. I walk in to work and pass by 3 young engineers that have their VR headsets/goggles on and are reachingup into the air and pinching their fingertips together in cyberspace. I just shake my head and say, I'm glad I'll be out of this mess in 3 more years and it will be in their hands.

I've been retired for 15 1/2 years. A bad day of retirement is better than a good day at work.

bryancobb wrote:I walk in to work and pass by 3 young engineers that have their VR headsets/goggles on and are reachingup into the air and pinching their fingertips together in cyberspace. I just shake my head and say, I'm glad I'll be out of this mess in 3 more years and it will be in their hands.

Fifty years ago, we landed a man on the moon.A lot of the work that went into that endeavor, was accomplished with a slide rule. Mission accomplished.Could a mission to Mars be done the same way? Probably.Go figure.

Absolutely! In 1953, Werner von Braun published a slim book titled "The Mars Project," laying out all the calculations for a mission to Mars. I have a copy. His only tools were a slide rule and a set of astronomical tables. His numbers still hold up today.

The opinions posted are those of one CFI, and do not necessarily represent the FAA or its lawyers.Prof H Paul ShuchPhD CFII DPE LSRM-A/GL/WS/PPC iRMTAvSport LLC, KLHVfly@AvSport.orgAvSport.org facebook.com/SportFlyingSportPilotExaminer.US

As a freshman at NCSU, one of the first items I purchased was a Post Versalog. It was great. I also had an E6B. But, that was then, this is now. I'm sitting here now streaming high definition music from Tidal and Qobuz.